: What could be done to generate and maintain reader interest in plots without a lot of conflict / tension? Edit 3 - Even though this is the third edit I feel it has to be included here at

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Conflict does not have to be grand, and the stakes do not have to be enormous. Consider a romance, like "When Harry Met Sally" or "Sleepless In Seattle" or "You've Got Mail". I'm not saying you should write one, I am saying not one of them has much consequence to them other than "How will they overcome their personal issues to finally get together?" Not one of them really affects their fictional world beyond their own family and friends, like any normal wedding.

There is not even a question of whether they will get together. The same thing goes for Tom Hanks in "Castaway". We know he'll get off the island. The conflict is in his despair, setbacks, and borderline mental illness; and then when he does get off the island, resuming a life when he has been gone for five years (or whatever) and everybody has moved on with their lives. But only his own family and friends are affected, the rest of the world goes on as always.

When you are writing, exploring this character, think of "conflict" as the reader "wondering what happens next", as in the next five pages or so. You need layers of conflict: short term, medium term, and long term. The long term is his career, and you need an arc there. Dreams, setbacks, recalibration to reality, another setback, another recalibration, success of some sort (which he may or may not be happy with). Or perhaps he abandons that dream of the fleet of ships, because he has fallen in love and that is more important to him. Or perhaps he is so committed to it, he breaks the heart of someone that loves him, in order to continue pursuing it.

The Spiderman comic books had one of the most faithful fan bases, for one good reason: Unlike Superman or Batman, Spiderman loses 48% of his battles with big evil. He utterly fails. And because he fails, his fans remain interested, they want to know what happens next because it is true mystery from page to page if
this one is going to be a win or a loss.

You need something similar for your character. Don't let him win more than half the time. Conflict is wondering what will happen next, how this scene will work out, and that is why readers turn pages, to find out. To make them want to know, you need stakes. They can be small, but something your hero really needs or really wants. So the success or failure matters to the reader.

And if there are no failures, the reader stops wondering what will happen next: They know success is coming and get bored with it. So keep them guessing, make his opponents clever, and tricky, and frauds and cheats, that sometimes win or steal from him or trick him. In fact, I'd lead with that, a failure, a setback, a robbery. He's got to get experience somehow, best while he is young at the beginning, so we see him grow wiser later.

Grand world scale conflict is not necessary at all. But strive to have conflict on every page. Arguments, confusion, failures, rejection by potential lovers, stupid mistakes, people taking advantage of his financial straits and once in awhile a triumph, in trade or love or some other source of glee. Make his life difficult. Not so difficult as to be a tragedy, but not an easy walk to success either. (That would be a wish fulfillment story, and they tend not to sell well.)

Overlap these, so there should always be another question to be answered in this chapter, or the next 5 or 10 pages, and at the end of a chapter progress on a big picture arc (e.g. his life goal as a whole, or his love life) leaving a question to be answered in the next chapter or three.

EDIT to clear up a possible misunderstanding:

Do not misunderstand "every page": On every page a reader should be wondering how something will turn out. Most lives of those with a job (like your char) have tension nearly every day, a project to be done, a problem to be solved, people to convince, goals to accomplish before it is too late, reasons to push and hurry, promises to keep, customers to please, competitors to defeat. Places to be and things to do. The conflict does not have to be NEW on every page, it just needs to carry through.

For example, say my hero, Verdia, journeys to Bluestone Castle, to seek the aid of the witch there. There will be conditions, she knows, the witch will judge her before a magic mirror, where she will see her image play out her sins, every one of them laid bare, and demand vengeance for one or more of them to pay for her favor. And Verdia has sinned, she is not pure, and she has done people harm. As she journeys, she is at times reminded of these incidents in her past, sometimes regretful, or embarrassed, sometimes dreading the witch watching her perform them, her soul laid bare. She doesn't know how the witch exacts vengeance, and fears it. In this way, the journey to Bluestone Castle may constitute half the book, but the reader can be reminded often, by Verdia's dreams and memories in-between her adventures on the journey to the castle, that she will meet the witch, and have a price to pay to accomplish her mission. It may be steep price, she fears it all the more for not knowing what it will be. But she marches into her fate because she must, she must secure her favor at any cost. The reader marches with her, to find out what happens. What will the witch demand?

When the reader stops wondering what happens next, then you risk them giving up on your story. If the story is all wondering with no answers (and the longer they wonder, like with the witch above, the bigger the answer should be), readers will lose interest, too. This demands a kind of structure to fiction: To be good entertainment it must present a series of puzzles and challenges of various sizes to keep the reader wondering, and must pay them off along the way, with varied rewards or punishments. That is what we mean by "conflict on every page". For novel or movie length entertainment, a whole series of such puzzles and challenges must be devised, on the fly (discovery approach) or up front (plotter approach), and woven together. Otherwise, readers lose interest, and agents, editors and publishers reject such stories. This is why "wish fulfillment" stories fail; there is not enough hardship for the heroes to earn their rewards.

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